9 Essential iPhone Apps for the Tech-Savvy Petrolhead

It isn’t an exaggeration to say that the iPhone has revolutionised our lives. Never before has it been so easy to access information and as a consequence we’ve become used to being bombarded with emails, knowledge, and news updates.

As a motorist we can now check our emails anywhere in the country when we stop for a break, look up interesting places and roads on the Internet, and phone home to say that we’ll be late when the sodding M1 is closed – again.

But there is so much more to Apple’s finest than that. Here is the Driven guide to the Smartphone apps that every petrolhead needs.

1. Road Trip

My number one app is Road Trip. Essentially it keeps a track of how much fuel you’ve used, as well as any other car-related expense, and displays the cost-per-mile in a graph. As a motoring journalist it has transformed my record keeping; no more scraps of paper recording mileage covered and fuel bought and no more (literally) back-of-a-fag-packet calculations to convert litres to gallons.

But it’s so much more than that; anyone who wants to keep track of what they’re spending on their car will appreciate this useful little gizmo. You can have multiple cars on there, along with little pictures of them (is it just me, or is that a really cool feature?).

It handles all currencies, capacities, units, and expenses with ease and you can export the data to your home PC or Mac so that you’ve got a backup copy. Servicing and MOT reminders? No problem, it’ll tell you when you need to get your hands dirty too. You can also record tyre sizes (to monitor how long they last), fuel tank capacity (to predict range), and road trips.

Gripes? Just one; I wish that I could password protect it so that I can hide from my inquisitive wife just how awful the fuel consumption of some of my more esoteric cars is…

2. CoPilot Live

CoPilot uses the inbuilt GPS to pinpoint your location; with that simple information it becomes, quite simply, the best in-car GPS that I’ve ever used. It’s never been wrong, it’s regularly updated, and it has all the features that you need and none that you don’t.

Buy an iPhone cradle for your car, buy this app and you’ll never get lost again.

3. TiltMeterE

If you regularly off-road your car then this little app will tell you the crazy angle that you are currently scaring your passengers with.

“But I don’t go off-road!” I hear you bleat. Well, you can still use this neat application to measure the angle of almost anything – I used it to check that the tow bar that I was fitting was straight, for instance. I also understand that some gentlemen use it to measure the angle-of-dangle as they get older and record their decline on a graph.

Cheap, neat, good graphics and well-thought out; what more do you want?

4. Auto Trader

Autotrader is the must-have website for all car nuts – and now you can search for your dream car on the move too!

It has most of the features that you’re used to on its big brother website and (apart from eBay) is the iPhone app most likely to get me into trouble with my wife…

5. Decibel

An increasing number of tracks are enforcing a limit on the noise that your car can make (this is especially annoying in the case of the Goodwood circuit as the land was donated for social housing and the ungrateful buggers are now complaining about having to live so close to racing cars…)

Anyway, Decibel is a neat and accurate app that measures, well, decibels. It gives the average noise reading as well as the peak and the maximum. Another application that does exactly what it says on the label and won’t break the bank either.

6. GlassOfWater

GlassOfWater is an app that Toyota released as part of their ‘zero emission’ initiative. Despite being a bit worthy it’s a good application and will make you a smoother driver – and, as we all know, Jackie Stewart said that if you want to be fast, first you need to be smooth.

It records fuel consumption etc., etc., but its best feature is, as you’d expect, a graphic of a glass of water and you need to drive without spilling any. Compulsive and far harder than it sounds just make sure that you concentrate on the road as well as your iPhone.

You can also upload your figures online and turn it into a bit of a competition too.

7. Dynolicious

Dynolicious is the ubiquitous app that measures your car’s performance and power.

It can measure:

• 0-60 acceleration,
• acceleration increments such as 0-10 MPH through 0-100 MPH in 10 MPH stages,
• 1/4 mile elapsed time and speed,
• elapsed time and trap speed for standard intervals (60′, 330′, 1/8 Mile, 1000′),
• lateral and braking G-force (current and peak),
• horsepower (wheel and/or estimated at the crankshaft),
• friction Circle (max G-force in 16 directions),
• downloadable timed run and skidpan graphs.

It handles all measuring units, Euro and US, and enables you to make adjustments and modifications to your car and then measure their effect.

I know a couple of motoring journalists who use this one and once you’ve got used to the (sometimes complicated) graphical interface this is the daddy of them all.

Quite simply, if you are measuring your car’s performance and want objective, rather than subjective, results you need this app.

8. CarWings

CarWings is another app from a major car manufacturer, Nissan in this case. It’s important not for what it can do (although, providing you own a Nissan LEAF, it can do rather a lot) but for the ethos behind it.

Nissan have embraced the iPhone generation, one of the first to do so amongst car manufacturers. They’ve taken the trouble to think about how the iPhone and LEAF can interact and complement each other, and someday this kind of interface will be common.

For now though, Nissan are leading the way and if you’re in the market for an all-electric small car then you can do far worse than to get one of these and enjoy it – and the app!

9. LV=

LV= (or Liverpool Victoria for our older readers) have launched an interesting little app. Clearly commercial in nature, it is useful for all drivers and not just those who insure with the company.

It shows live traffic information, and, importantly, has an accident toolkit.

This tells you what to do if you have a bump and what information to record. It even provides a template so that you don’t miss anything and includes a neat little camera function within it to record car damage and positions. If you’re an LV= customer, you can also call them to report your accident at the touch of an icon.

Very neat, and well worth downloading as it’s free!